I knew I'd got a place at White Spirit Tangerine Painting School before Marcus Hindley had laid his big ink-stained hands on me. I could feel it. A twelfth sense if you will.Painters unite! I am Painter. You are Painter. You and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and oyu [sic] and you. Let us Paint!Finally I was ready. All the gear, no idea. . I am ready. Thats what I said in my interview. I don't give a shit about all that gallerist stuff. Who needs galleries? Curators. Certainly not Painters.The email confirmed it beyond the doubt that I should probably have allowed myself. I was accepted into Real Painting Academy High!The email went on confirming...Please pay the total of £6000 by Christmas.

My children and I said goodbye to eachother on September 27th 2014.'Pablo, Frankenthaler, I am going away to work. Exactly like my father, I have to go and work for another man. Listen, one day when I was 7 years old, and 9 years old like you are now, a giant white bird landed in our back garden and flew my father off to land him on an oil rig somewhere in the North Sea. It's just what men have to do to stop their houses and women being repossessed by other men. Don't cry for me, my son, my daughter, weep for your future illegitimate children. Daddy is going away and he won't return for 9 months. I know you understand, my beautiful biological sculptures.Pablo, you are now the Minotaur of the House! I have been benignly raising you for your 7 long years to take care of your sister. Frankenthaler, I wouldn't ever bet against you my wonderful born feminist and each of you have to promise me, never try to come find me under any circumstances. I am going where no children should experience let alone live, a brutalist neglected space in the South, to the East, The Castle with room for a horde of Elephants.'Pablo and Frankenthaler looked at me with their uniformly clear glistening eyes. Oh they unwaveringly understood that Daddy had no choice. This was the most prestigious opportunity for a Painter in latex gloves to try and grasp.Frankenthaler understood alright, 'You don't want to be an alumni of those False Academies Daddy, they are a bunch of picture-perpetrators.'I beamed. Now now my child, we must forgive them, for they know not what they do.And with that, I took it in turns to shake the delicate hands of these small human beings and turned away, not looking back at all and not even wondering a Higgs boson about how they would get home. Speaking in perfect unison, without a spec of wistfulness, 'Goodbye, Sir, good luck' as I continued on the path.We would collide in the future.